Here’s to the sweetness of natural pain relief! I’ve been off sugar for two months now and started having some really bad cravings this past week. A friend reminded me of the existence of my blender, and since then, I’ve concocted numerous variations of this anti-inflammatory, nutritious dessert — which always leaves a smile on my face. Here’s a mix & match recipe, so that you too can experience the sweetness of natural pain relief:

Equipment needed:

Blender

Glass

Spoon

Ingredients

Fresh or frozen fruit: Blueberries, strawberries, bananas, or whatever sings your name. Keep in mind that berries have the additional perk of containing anti-oxidants. If you use fresh fruit, and you want your drink to have that cold smoothie texture, you should also add ice into the mixture. As always, organic fruit is preferable to conventional.

Ground flax seeds: Flax seeds are rich in anti-inflammatory properties. You can either buy the seeds already ground, or you can buy them whole and throw them into the blender. I prefer to buy them ground, because my cheap-ass blender never does an adequate job of pulverizing the damn things.

Protein: Walnuts, almonds, cashews, and protein powder are all examples of what you can use, depending on your palate. I prefer walnuts, which have anti-inflammatory properties and add a cool nutty taste to the mix. Again, organic is preferable to conventional.

Natural Sweetner: Raw maple syrup, raw honey, agave nectar, and stevia are all examples of natural sweetner alternatives to sugar. I prefer raw maple syrup. I probably throw in a couple of tablespoons, but how much to add will depend on your own sweet tooth.

Liquid: Use milk, orange juice, soy milk, water, or whatever meets your dietary needs and fits the profile of liquids sitting around in yer pad. I prefer 1% reduced fat milk, with a little orange juice thrown in for good measure. You’ll need to experiment with how much liquid to add. The less liquid, the thicker the shake. I usually have a 2/3 liquids to 1/3 solids ratio.

Instructions

Throw everything into the blender. Again, you’ll need to experiment with how much of each ingredient makes your own personal taste buds sing. I’m generally heavy on the fruits, with just a handful of nuts and about 1/4 cup of ground flax seeds.

Comments

Cathy Sherman May 3rd, 2010

Hi Loolwa,
Thanks for the delicious smoothie recipe. It sounds healthy and tasty.
I just have one comment in regard to your statement on flax seeds. I’ve been researching these little beauties, and I’ve learned that they don’t keep very long in the ground state. It’ s best to buy whole and grind as needed. A very easy and effective grinder is a coffee grinder; these are not expensive and work great with seeds. I had one for coffee beans and one for my seeds.